It's Been a Long Year

When I think of where I was and how I was this time last year, it's like night and day. I lost good things that made me happy. I still make some of the same mistakes that made me miserable. I've deepened friendships and ended others. I strive to be more honest with myself about who I am on a basal level and how much I can realistically pile on my plate.

What's that expression about the eyes being bigger than the stomach? My eyes are bigger than my schedule. It has been a consistent and lifelong fault. I remember having a conversation with my parents at the ripe old age of 14 about taking on too much. "Really? Laura, you think you can handle jazz band, church and school choir, the school musical, art class, models on top of your regular school work?" So I quit band and models, made honor roll, chased off a boy and barely kept from snapping like a twig.

My mantra was always "I'll find time." In my mind, that time was always the next free weekend, oblivious to the idea that the next free weekend could be months away and when I got there, I more likely would just collapse under the weight of my exhaustion. But then those valuable times of collapse/rest that often kept me away from a full systems meltdown went away when the unpredicted disasters started to flood in and take up every remaining second. I had to double and triple schedule just to make it to medical appointments. I would work sitting in waiting rooms. Or I'd sit there and marinate in self-pity or fear. It tenderizes the meat so I'd be emotionally soft when repeatedly stabbed with a metaphorical fork.

I'm working through a dramatic personal re-org. I'm learning how to say "no thanks, I'm full." I try to remind myself that taking on a new thing means compromising or removing an old thing. Baby steps.

All that goes to say that I'll be posting again, although I'm not going to promise to myself or anyone else that it will be regular or like clockwork as it was briefly. But I enjoy writing and making ponies and both feed into the other as a perpetual motion machine of productivity. And I wanna draw a little. I passed up an opportunity to sell my 2D art about a month ago. But the honest answer is it I don't do any of this to sell my work. I just like it. Sales are a byproduct.

Having said that, I'm hoping to produce some work for sale in the near future because I'm a poor college student and I can't buy groceries with personal growth or pay rent with emotional fulfillment. My landlord is a hard ass like that.

Beginning a New Chapter

So I'm starting graduate school in a few weeks. I'm going to be a Husky.

This has been a long term goal of mine, and not just because I thought their mascot was cute when I was ten. I am very excited to get started (and more excited to finish--and graduate--and start my new career--and make more money--a lot more money...) But the downside is my model time will be more limited over the next couple years.

Times, They Are a Changing

By now, I'm sure most of you have heard that Breyer is discontinuing JAH.

I originally subscribed as a horse crazy kid, way back in the mid-nineties. I think I begged for month before my mom relented and sent in the subscription card found in every yellow Breyer box. My first issues opened up a new world to me of custom Breyers and performance set-ups. I spent hours reading the classifieds, scanning for (what else?) Shams for sale.

The How-To's were a godsend. I can say with confidence that I wouldn't be where I am today without them. There was particular article, which lead to a custom, which lead to a sale years later, which drew me back into customizing.

So part of me is deeply sad to see it go.

However, I've also been in the hobby long enough at this point to know that nothing ever just disappears. Magazines have come and gone. But overall, for every resource I've seen fall away, dozens have popped up to replace it. Breyer is moving into the digital age and much of the content is moving online. If this prompts Breyer to expand their website, I see this as an overall gain for the hobby.

Still, I'll miss it.

Weird Keyword Searches

Blogger has this handy little feature which tracks how people find my blog. It includes keyword searches, which have become my own private source of entertainment. Some of these are too good not to share:

• "can a horse eat paint off a car"
• "scotchblue painter's tape frog"
• "abstract bold colors with horse with blue mane and tail on lower"
• "the order that"

"Barbaro statue" is always near the top. So when you notice I work Churchill's Barbaro-The-Gelding Statue into every post, know it's an attempt to draw in non-model horse readers.

He's cute and I appreciate the engineering, but a very obvious gelding.

(Not really. I've run out of things to say about the statue.)

Don’t Eat the Paint and Other Safety Tips

It occurred to me that I skipped over a very important topic: safety. Hopefully, all your digits have survived to this point, and this post will save you from future suffering.

First, don’t eat the paint. It’s not good for you.

Don’t use the back of your hand as a palate. I’ve been told it will give me hand-cancer.

Don’t push on a stubborn breyer body with a heat gun. Especially don’t use it force a limb towards yourself…when it’s still hot…and hit yourself in the face. (Notice in “Brands I Prefer: Part 2” that my heat gun has a plastic cover over the tip. This tip is removable. Don't.)

Don’t paint in poorly ventilated areas like bathrooms, windowless rooms, or the back of your garage.

Don’t dremel anything without safety glasses and a mask. Don’t buy the “cool looking” glasses when the high school chemistry class model will better protect your eyes. Don’t let your goggles collect dust in the garage while you merrily dremel on the floor of your bedroom.

Don’t run rubbing alcohol through your airbrush without a mask. Really, don’t paint without a mask. Or take your mask off…ever.

Don’t glue your fingers together.

After gluing your fingers together, don’t go back and put more glue on your fingers, dip them in baking soda, scream from the burning pain of this combination only so you can easily peel the glue off your finger tips.

Wear gloves. Always. Except when using Apoxie. Buy those latex ones in bulk.

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I’ve been asked a few times why this blog is called “Don’t Eat the Paint.” In a nutshell, it’s all due to a certain model horse artist. I won’t post her name as to avoid any embarrassment for the parties involved.

The long version is I attended one of [NAME REDACTED]’s painting clinics when I was a young aspiring artist. That was where I learned you can stick a brush in your mouth when you’re desperate enough for liquid to thin out your paint. It’s shockingly common behavior among painters. So the title really means “do as I say, not as I do,” which I find applies frequently.

Programming Notes

Fear not readers! My recent silence on this blog does not mean I have not been hard at work. Over the last few months, I've finished the next few months of material to appear on this blog.

Better yet, I'm making two substantial new additions to my blogging process. One, I've created a Facebook page. If you don't use RSS, this is a great way to know when I add new material.

Second, new tutorials will begin appearing here on a weekly basis. New tutorials will post Thursday nights because, statistically speaking, the goofing-around-on-the-internet to work ratio goes up substantially on Fridays. Or not. I don't know because 100 people in my office can see my computer screen at all times. It is awkward.

My first official tutorial will post later this evening.

Obligatory plastic pony photo:

New Blogging Goal

I've debating starting a Facebook page for me studio, but I thought it was touch redundant. Instead, I'm trying a new experiment. I'm going to try to post at least a picture a day of what I'm currently working on in the studio or of recent work I haven't shown before.

I work faster against a deadline, so I'm hoping a daily deadline might increase my output. Or it will suck up time I could be painting. Who knows.

A custom Nokota who's shipping out today to Lauren Tapley/Hoeffer:



The thing under his hoof is masking tape covering an acrylic rod. And yes, he's sitting on a chair. I've been toying with his base for a while and trying to push the limits of what will hold up a heavy drastic custom without being unstable.

This guys is a part of project "Desert Fish," which is top secret for now. Details to come when we're closer to Breyerfest.

Minor face lift

The small with the posting column was making me nutters. I couldn't fit my "standard" size photos with a width of 500--no bueno. Photos will often still link (as before) to high res versions.

i has a blog

I've had this blog just sitting here for way too long.

My primary intent is to use it as a forum for updates on my works in progress and the occasional tutorial. My hope is to post images of the goings on of my work bench on a weekly basis.

I'm not planning the tutorials as a comprehensive how-to of model horse-dom. There are plenty of great resources out there already that fit this mold and I'll discuss my favorites in a later post. My tutorials are intended to be supplemental. I have a few unique approaches I've developed over the years and this seems like a decent venue to share.

My thoughts on other hobby and horse related topics may occasionally sneak in.